Queering Contemporary Gothic Narrative 1970-2012

Palgrave Gothic

by Paulina Palmer

This book explores the development of queer Gothic fiction, contextualizing it with reference to representations of queer sexualities and genders in eighteenth and nineteenth-century Gothic, as well as the sexual-political perspectives generated by the 1970s lesbian and gay liberation movements and the development of queer theory in the 1990s. The book examines the roles that Gothic motifs and narrative strategies play in depicting aspects of lesbian, gay, bisexual, transsexual and intersex experience in contemporary Gothic fiction. Gothic motifs discussed include spectrality, the haunted house, the vampire, doppelganger and monster. Regional Gothic and the contribution that Gothic tropes make to queer historical fiction and historiography receive attention, as does the AIDS narrative. Female Gothic and feminist perspectives are also explored. Writers discussed include Peter Ackroyd, Vincent Brome, Jim Grimsley, Alan Hollinghurst, Randall Kenan, Meg Kingston, Michelle Paver, Susan Swan, Louise Tondeur, Sarah Waters, Kathleen Winter and Jeanette Winterson.

213 pages, Paperback

Published March 5, 2018

Reviews

[Evan · Rating 3 out of 5]

The literature review is thorough, and very useful to those less familiar with the territory to be covered in later chapters. However, the author blatantly misgenders and deadnames transgender authors, which is more than unfortunate in what should be, and wants to be, and inclusive analysis. There is also some clumsy copy editing in the opening pages that is an unwelcome distraction, and the author seems tentative and unsure some times in their deployment of the terms transgender and intersex, leading to awkward phrasings. This detracts a little from the enjoyment of the opening of a book I had been excited to read.

However, the analytic content of the books is sound. Each chapter addresses a particular theme within queer gothic fiction, from haunting to vampirism, and this structure works well to link essays that can stand alone into a cohesive whole. The references and critical readings are interesting, if not excitingly innovative in this field.

Overall, worth reading, but not as exciting as I expected for my research interests.